Great parties are born and not made, and they endure for a long time. The Labour Party came into existence less than eighty years ago. With the tumult of Brighton scarcely over, it may seem unfair to ask if it is still, and can continue to be, a mass party. A party, that is, which has a large and enthusiastic membership of individuals, agreed on the road they are taking even if they differ about the speed of the journey; a party with an accepted forum for debating, refining and presenting policy, enabling it to look outward both to the domestic electorate and to fellow socialist parties abroad. Such a party would have devoted its annual conference not to a struggle for internal control, but to the move ahead, asking not only why so little was achieved by the 1974-9 government, but also why it was in a minority almost from the beginning.

LRB 8 November 1979 | PDF Download